Ascension isn't easy
by Machina Super Monstrum
Summary: Operation Avenger has come and gone, those lost were mourned as the world moved on. The world revels in what has been gained but those listed as KIA don't always stay that way...
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Another XCOM story whipped up to tide over while I settle into my new place. Based on the Volunteer confirmation as well as details from XCOM 2. Note, I am not military and I haven't interacted with my military father in some time, so forgive me if I got those style of details wrong.**

"The final blow against the alien menace, known as Operation Avenger, was struck just 5 years ago. In that time, we, humanity as a whole has advanced so much both technologically and socially." The gray haired Commander of XCOM stands before a large crowd in Washington DC, camera drones buzzing all about.

The Commander extends both arms over the seated troops, scientists, and engineers sitting upon the massive stage, "Each of these fine men and women worked and fought tirelessly so that humanity would live to see another day free." One of the hands comes to rest on the Commander's chest, "I would personally sing the praises of everyone on this stage right now, but believe me, I have a _terrible_ singing voice."

A light chuckle spreads through the crowd before the Commander continues.

"But today, we are here to remember those who gave everything they had for humanity. Each and every one of them was nothing less than a hero, but none more so than The Volunteer, Colonel Eva Bodewig, who not only saved our world from total destruction by sacrificing herself to move the collapsing Temple Ship, but also, it is through research into her abilities and those of our other Psions that we have come so far in our psionic understanding, and now, 1 out of 4 humans is born with psi capabilities. And, because of all their sacrifices, we commend them with this memorial."

The Commander presses a button on the podium, letting the large draped cloth fall from the covered monument with a loud thump.

The now revealed memorial is of a full 6 member squad composed of a female MEC hefting a Particle Cannon, a female Genetrooper holding a Plasma Rifle, a short female Assualt recoiling an Alloy Cannon, a female Heavy wielding a mid fire Heavy Plasma, a male Support holding a Medikit in one hand and an Arc Thrower in the other, and a female Sniper, Plasma Sniper held in one hand with her other thrown forward at the unseen enemy, all on a platform that bears the XCOM insignia and surrounded by the names of those who fell in the line of duty.

The crowd claps, a cacophony interspersed with bellows from the various armed forces members gathered. The noise dies down quickly as the Commander turns to the memorial, raising a hand in salute, all in attendance moving to match.

"Humanity thanks you for your sacrifice." A smile crosses the Commander's face, "Hope you're giving the angels hell up there." His voice begins booming once again, "Vigilo Confido!" A call matched by all in attendance, save one...

"Mutare Ad Custodiam!"

All eyes turn to the location of the dissenting shout, eliciting gasps and dropping jaws, mostly from those on the stage itself.

"I don't think you quite got my face right Commander." In the back of the crowd, clad in polished but worn Psi-armor, a flickering and damaged Plasma Sniper slung on her back with a simple leather strap, stood the blonde vixen known as The Dragon, Colonel Eva Bodewig.

"Colonel Bodewig?! You're alive?!"

"Mostly..." the Psi-Sniper makes her way slowly through the still gormless crowd, a stiff limp in her left leg, until she finally makes it onto the stage and it becomes clear, her left leg is gone from mid thigh down and she stands on a translucent purple construct, wisps of energy floating off of it. "The Ethereals knew how to do a lot of things Commander and the Temple Ship was a helluva repository. But, I'll explain more at the debriefing, for now, you have a memorial service to wrap up." A soft, happy smile sits on her well tanned face as one of the troopers on stage immediately stands to give her his seat. "Thanks Ramirez," she pats the dark skinned Heavy on the shoulder as she slumps into the chair and the construct flickers out, the Sniper listening as the Commander eventually restarts the service where it was dropped.

* * *

The rest of the service went without any further hitches or surprise guests.

Colonel Bodewig sent away any doctors that tried to help her after the service, merely telling her companions; "They won't be able to understand what I've become."

When brought in to do the debriefing, her only requests were that they do it in the old CIC and that a few people be there, including the Commander, Dr. Shen, Dr. Vahlen, and all of her squad that was still with XCOM, because, as she put it, "I have some explaining to do and some apologies to make." A seemingly simple request that ended up taking quite a bit longer as one of her remaining squad mates was a MEC Trooper who rarely left her suit if she didn't have to.

After getting all involved situated in the CIC of the now far expanded XCOM headquarters, the debriefing could begin.

"I suppose I'll need to start from the beginning huh?" She settles into the chill metal chair, "Could I get some water and maybe a bit of food? I haven't eaten in a few years."

As the shocked expressions cross the faces of her companions and commanding officers, she chuckles a little, shaking her head. "I'll get to that, could I get some?" An order is quickly sent out for the required food and drink.

"Alright, before we start, I have to make it known, as far as I'm concerned, I retired when you labeled me KIA, so this won't follow normal debrief protocol. It'll be like those talks we used to have back in the day, Commander," she looked around the room for any signs in the negative. Seeing none, she clapped her hands together, "Great, so, you guys want to know what happened? For that we're going to have to start from the end of Operation Avenger." She sighs, her brilliant violet eyes flickering to a bright blue for a moment. "We got the Uber cornered, Florette's dead, Henrietta was down but her second heart had kicked in and was keeping her going, I could… feel the rest of the squad's and how much their bodies were kicked up into one helluva an overdrive."

The food and water arrive, to which she quickly downs one of the bottles of water.

"I felt the psi start to surge through me again and it..." she sighs, rubbing her temples. "Sorry, this is really hard to describe to non-psis. It was like... I had recharged enough. I pulled on the knowledge from the Gollop Chamber and forced my will upon the world, opening another Rift, right on top of the bastard."

Ramirez nods, "I remember that, it gave some monologue about our destiny or some shit before Eva's Rift tore it apart."

"The whole ship started coming apart, meaning it was time to bug out, but I had this vision of the ship collapsing into a black hole and taking the world with it but at the same time... again, this is, again, hard to describe to non-psis, but it was... an epiphany, of sorts, on how to guide and safely detonate the ship. I had to force the others out the door when I stopped, I had to get them out. Unfortunately, Henrietta and Florette were still in the room with me when I took control."

The Commander breaks in, "Wait, you said that Florette was dead,"

"I'll get to that Commander." She coughs a little, wolfing down a large fish sandwich in front of her. "I took control of the device, steering it felt a lot easier than I expected, only took a few seconds before it felt, well, natural. I took it up and did my best to... for lack of a better term, _stabilize_ the black hole and teleported out."

Dr. Vahlen is the one to speak up this time. Teleportation was something attempted by many a Psi positive individual but had never been successful. "Teleported? How?"

"The Gollop Device connected me to the Ethereal's psionic information network. In the blink of an eye, an immense amount of information was dumped into my head, but just as quickly they found me in there and locked me out. It was how I learned of the Rift and was able to push everyone out the door. And, once I accessed the one on Temple, suddenly I had complete, unimpeded access to the entirety of the knowledge on the ship. It was too much to handle at once and I had to struggle to keep control of my own mind as I took the ship up. It all crashed against the edges of my mind like a great ocean storm, but in it I found a piece of mental driftwood to cling to."

She stops, taking a deep breath, staring at her hand, still wreathed in the wisps of energy common of a psion. "I found a defunct theory of Psi-porting. From what I could tell, it had actually been discarded because of the power requirements of it, needing something on the Uber's level for each separate port. But... it just sort of… resonated with me and as we hit the safe zone, I poured everything I had into that one theory… and teleported."

The weary woman drains another bottle of water before continuing yet again. "I know that the Doctors probably have a lot of questions and the guys listening in on this probably think I'm just nuts if they weren't there during the war, but I would really prefer to simply tell the story than go back over it. It feels kind of odd to remember my pre-ascension state." The Sniper rubs her temples a little. "No, I'm not quite human anymore, but I can assure you I'm not one of them."

She turns to the wall to her left wall, staring at with an arched brow "Yes. I can hear your thoughts and I **could** find out much more, if I wanted to that is. But I don't, I just want you to listen to what I have to say."

"When I came to again, I was sitting in a smoking pile of wreckage, in a desert. Seems I'd carved a large bubble of ship out with me when I ported..."

* * *

The sun was high in the sky, beating down on the smoldering scrap I sat on, and, as I discovered when I tried to move, under. My leg was mangled, pinned to a large hunk of metal like a butterfly to a peg board, only hanging on by a few shreds of flesh and the psi-armor. Somehow though, I wasn't bleeding out and the only pain I felt was an intense migraine.

I spent a good 10 minutes trying to remove the metal but I wasn't getting anywhere and I was starting to feel dizzy. I knew if I passed out now it was likely I wasn't going to wake back up, so I made a snap decision, pulled my plasma pistol out, closed my eyes and slagged the metal in front of me, severing the last few shreds and freeing my now stump of a leg, already cauterized by the intense heat.

I rolled off the metal and into the hot sand, struggling to pull myself up as my vision blurred and the world spun around me. By chance or by luck, my rifle was still nearby and I was able to use it like a crutch and get into a standing position, albeit wobbly from both the sand and the splitting migraine.

I knew I shouldn't have, considering my Psi, but I popped a few of the painkiller injections built into the suit, just enough to clear my head and figure out what was going on. My vision cleared in a few moments and I saw both Henrietta and Florette's bodies lying in the sand, some scorch marks on their armor but seemingly unhurt, any worse than they already were at least. Maybe I could still get their bodies home for proper burial.

Then, I noticed the slightest shift in Henrietta's chest, barely anything, easily could have been something beneath her, but I wasn't in much a state to take that chance. I was going to need another pair of hands for getting out of here.

I scrambled over to her, dropping the rifle and thus myself to the gritty sand, crawling over to her body and flipping her onto her back.

"Come on Hen. Wake up." Both hearts had stopped as I put my fingers to her uncovered neck. Pressing the releases on the armor, it cracked open with a hiss, allowing me to start chest compressions. "Come on, one, two, three, ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive, stayin alive." Another check and still nothing. "Dammit Hen, you restart those hearts right now! Don't die on me, that's an order!"

My hands flared to life with the vibrant purple of a Psi power and Henrietta gasped, eyes shooting open as she bolted upright, knocking me over. Her breath came in short gasps as she clutched her chest."

E-Eva...? I'm... h-holy shit..." her breathing steadied a small bit. "Last thing I got after the Ethereal hit me was white light, weightlessness, then I heard your voice and it was like I had to get up and follow that order." She seemed to notice our surroundings. "Shit, did we win?" Her breathing stabilized, "Feels like my hearts are both racing a mile a minute."

Darkness closed in on my vision, this loud incessant buzzing filling my ears, and I had just enough time to turn over and dry heave my empty stomach before finally passing out.

* * *

The tan sniper leans back in her chair, her eyes no longer flickering, returning to the deep lilac they once held. "I was unconscious for a day and a half according to Hen, don't know what was going on in my head, said I was writhing and screaming, but she couldn't really do much but build us a shelter and move both me and Florette's body out of the sun. She said she played me some music when she could and that seemed to help sometimes." She pats the worn armor still fused to her form as her body relaxes, showing her growing comfort with the situation. "Good thing we splurged on the solar adaptation, eh? When I woke up I had... changed... ascended in form and ability." Her smile grows as she downs another of the cooling sandwiches still sitting before her. "Now that that little headache is gone, I can actually hear the questions rattling around in your heads and feel a little more free. Why don't we answer a few of them, though some will be in the rest of this tale." She points at the female MEC trooper, crouched near the heavily upgraded Hologlobe. "Alice, yours is the easiest. Go ahead."

The MEC stirs slightly, her semi-synthesized voice ringing clear, "Why didn't you contact Central?"

"No equipment could be scrounged from the wreckage and the helmet radio wasn't strong enough to pick up anything. We broadcasted as often as possible but we were still in the middle of BFN, man."

She points at the man who gave her a seat at the ceremony earlier, "Ramirez, I'll get to yours shortly, it's part of the memory, same with yours Commander." She smiles a little, rounding on a short, brown haired girl, "Syyyyyd. You I can answer."

"Are you insane?"

"Yes!" The sniper answers without hesitation and with a big smile. "By normal human standards, I'm totally bat shit crazy. But applying normal human standards to me is a folly from the start." She pats the small woman on the shoulder. "Vahlen, your go, I can hear the thought that's been rolling through your labyrinthine mind since I started."

"What do you mean 'ascension'? What does that entail?"

Eva looked down at her hand, clenched in a fist as wisps of energy flow from it, "For the physiological, it was a few changes at first, gradually building as I grew more accustomed to it. I am 'better' than a human. As the two watching us have no doubt found out, my heart is beating twice as fast and my body temp is about 20 degrees lower than a normal human's. But, there are other aspects, my eyes have changed to match my energy signature, I'm processing 98% of the oxygen I intake, I don't need to eat more than a minuscule amount as long as I can focus my Psi inward, and, in a time of stress, I can manually control both autonomic and hormonal responses." Her fist unfurls, the streams of purple dissipating in the chill air. "Psionic modifications of the physical body are certainly an incredible thing, but... that's what drove the Ethereals to their frail, thin bodies as they were. If you don't **have** to eat, why would you? If you don't **need** to exert physical effort, why would you? If you need only your mind, then the shell can languish. Dr. Shen?"

"How did you learn all this?"

A smile crosses her face. "The 'Ethereal Device' in the Gollop Chamber. It plugged me into the Ethereal's psionic network, basically logging me onto the Ethereal's Internet." She chuckles a little at her comparison. "Thing is, they're born with their abilities and are trained constantly with em, so they know how to navigate those things. I wasn't and didn't, so it was an enormous download straight into my head. Then they figured out I was logged on and locked me out, delivering that whole spiel from before Operation Avenger before shutting down the terminal. When I got onto the Temple Ship and had to take control through their terminal… suddenly, I had admin privileges. The downside is the splitting migraines and the fact that it's still **really** hard to find what I'm looking for at any given moment. It takes time, like luring an animal rather than snatching the bird from the branch."

The aged engineer nods thoughtfully, scribbling notes onto a notepad in his lap.

She leans back in the cold metal chair again, staring at the ceiling while tearing through a burger and downing yet another bottle of water. "The rest of your questions will be answered soon." Her head rolls, coming to a rest staring into the Commander's eyes. "So, it was a day and a half later that I woke back up."

* * *

And I woke up with one of those migraines. I bolted upright in a panic, unsure of where I was and seeing only a shelter made of tattered cloth and metal, but at the same time **feeling** the world in the dead of the desert night. I could feel the minds of everything around me, even down to the small insects, like blips of light on a dark canvas. Something wasn't right though, I felt **two** other humanoid entities, one significantly brighter than the other.

I tried to get up, forgetting that my leg was gone and doing little but making noise rustling the makeshift bedding I was on and attracting the attention of one of the entities. So, I struggled against the wall of the shelter, pulling my pistol.

I count it lucky that it was only paranoia from my shifting mind, that same shift causing enough of a hesitation that Hen could call out, "Boss Are you awake?"

My body untensed as I heard her voice. "Y-yeah Hen. I'm awake."

"Good because we have a snag."

"What? Tell me." I barked, using the wall to struggle to stand upright, immediately falling back into officer mode.

"It's... It's Florette, sir." Hen seemed unsure in her statement. "She's... up."

"What?" Hen handed me both my rifle and what felt like a crutch cobbled together from the broken wreckage.

"After you passed out, she just... got up, found her Heavy-P and started walking around our wreckage sight. She hasn't spoken or stopped moving since you went under and she won't open her suit."

"Any other snags?"

"No sir, though I believe I might be suffering from our exposure already. I haven't eaten, drank, or slept since Avenger and I feel kind of... fuzzy, but I don't feel as bad as I'm pretty sure I should."

I nodded at her, "We'll get it taken care of after we figure out what's going on with Flore."

"Aye sir"

I kept a firm grip on my pistol as we left the ramshackle shelter, closing my eyes and feeling the other presence rounding the bend in its patrol route. I raised the pistol as it came around the corner, the pale moonlight our only illumination save Hen's flashlight.

"Halt."

The figure stopped immediately, the Heavy Plasma held at the ready, its glow flaring to life at my words, casing an eerie green across the burned Titan Armor.

"Major Florette?"

No sound came but for a low rumbling, "Major Florette, you will drop your weapons and get down on the ground."

The figure responded immediately, the Heavy-P hitting the sand with a thunk, before the figure itself joined, on its knees, hands behind its head.

"Flore... if that's you in there, I need you to take off your helmet."

The hands dipped a little, grasping for the clasps that locked the helmet to the armor. A long hiss escaped the sealed suit as the clasps unhooked, allowing the helmet to come off and the flashlight to fall upon her face…

* * *

Eva shudders in her chair. "What was underneath... I'm not afraid to say that I tried to vomit, but there was still nothing in my stomach. I wanted to scream but I had to hold together." She takes a deep breath. "Under that helmet was Flore... but… a definitely dead Flore... a **decayed** Flore!" She shudders again. "I feared she was one of the Chryssalid Zombies but they had faster gestation cycles. I didn't know what she might have been! I went to pull the trigger, and she looked at me with her dry eyes and spoke! Like gravel on sand, she said, 'Keep… safe... follow... orders' and then looked down at her Heavy-P. I quickly conferred with Hen, seeing if she had done anything aggressive towards us. She had done nothing, other than that there had been several times where she had rushed into the shelter and would come out holding a dead snake or crushed scorpion in her hands."

The psionic sniper shakes her head. "I found out after sifting through all this," she taps at her temples, "I had... I'd brought her back to a semblance of life. A necromantic zombie rather than those incubators the Chryssalids made. She was raised and ready to follow my orders but it happened when I passed out and her only directive was from my subconscious. To protect. She still had a shred of consciousness, though, because of how soon after death she was raised, her body was still beginning to decay, especially considering all the movement she'd been doing." Her gaze hardens as she turns to the wall, her eyes flaring in intensity, "No. I will never do it again. I loath to imagine what hells come from being locked within oneself, mind and body decaying, especially if they are a soldier killed in combat."

She shakes her head. "No. That particular power stays locked up in here." Another tap to her temple. "Never to be used again, I'll take it to my grave... whenever that is." Her head whips back to Dr. Vahlen. "No, I have no idea when I will die, if I die of natural causes obviously. Turns out Ethereals had very long lifespans and I had to use a few of their tricks."

She faces the Commander just as quickly. "Yes. I should, sorry." The sniper closes her eyes, taking a deep breath. "As I was saying..."

* * *

After we'd gotten over our shock and suppressed the disgust, I looked at the woman that had once been a close teammate, ordering her to stay put and then pulled Hen away to talk to her.

"Hen... first off, you look like shit." Her eyes were sunken and her cropped red hair was much darker and far more dull than normal, standing out against the unhealthy pallor her skin had taken on.

"I know, exposure and sleep dep tend to do that to a gal."

"Yeah. You're right, you need to get some sleep and we need to get some food and definitely water, the nutrient stims aren't going to last forever and I'm pretty sure my suit's out of painkillers now." I looked at my arm, the small LED display showing an inventory of onboard suit supplies, most of them depleted. "But first, we need to figure out what to do about that... about Flore."

"Sir... she seems to be subservient to you. Maybe its like your mind control power. We have to consider what she could do, especially since it seems she doesn't need any of the basic necessities. We could, maybe, use her."

"Hen! That's Florette you're talking about!"

"No, that **was** Flore. Now she's just some sort of fuckin' walking dead, one that's not trying to hurt us to boot."

I sighed, falling into a cold, logical thought process, sealing away emotions for a later time. "I hate to admit it, but you're right. She's definitely still breaking down though, her body's not repairing itself."

"She's wearing Titan though, that could augment her way past a lot of breakdown." Sensing my shift, Hen altered to match. "And her Heavy-P seems to be working fine."

"So, we have carry and defense. What about direction?"

"Well, onboard navs are damaged it seems, can't connect to any networks, so I had to dredge up a lot of high school astronomy but I've figured out our general location. I'm pretty sure we're in northern Africa, probably the Sahara, but that's about as accurate as I can get. All options equal like they are now, I'd recommend heading north, it's our best chance of finding some sort of civilization that we might be able to contact Central from."

I nodded, "Makes sense. Food and water?"

"Best we've got is the snakes Flore's been killing and I think I saw a few cacti a couple hundred meters from here. Past that, we've got little to nothing."

Another sigh escaped my lips again. "Has there been any sign of flybys, commercial traffic, a large flock of birds? Anything?"

"Nothing boss. Last thing I saw bigger than a snake was a camel that plodded by last night, it was headed north."

"That seals it. North it is. We should move now though, while it's still dark."

"Aye sir. I'll break camp while you... handle Flore."

I gave her a curt nod before taking a struggled turn and limping back to the Titan clad corpse, still on her knees, hands at her sides, staring lifelessly into the ground with her now dry eyes.

"Florette?" The figure reacted, sluggishly pulling to make eye contact and causing a shudder to run down my spine. "You are bound to me right?"

A low rasping crawled from her throat, "Yeees... sir."

"Like Mind Control?"

"Yeees... sir."

"Flore... are you still in there at all?"

"Yeee-s..." her rough voice cracked, making a sound like crumbling, wet sand. "Eva. S-still here."

"Oh goddess... I'm so sorry for what we have to do Flore." I shuddered in the chill desert night as our eyes met once again. "Stand, put your helmet back on and grab your Heavy-P, we're moving out in 30 and unfortunately you're going to have to be the pack mule."

"Under... stood." The whir of gyros and motors felt especially loud in the dim quiet of the desert night, the hiss of air pressurizing like a roaring beast, sealing off the bloated, discolored face of Florette beneath her helmet once more.

The Heavy Plasma Cannon pulsed slightly as her armored form rose from the sand, the servos locking around it firing triggers, steadying the massive gun.

"Ready... sir."

"Good. Report to Hen and get loaded up, your Titan Armor will hold most of the bulk." The armor clad corpse spun around, still gripping the weapon. "And Flore... f-for what it's worth... I'm so sorry..."

She stopped, midstep, her helmeted head turning shakily back to her commanding officer. "I know..." her hovering foot plants into the ground, trundling off towards their third companion.

 **A/N: Ok, a start for sure. I did my best to not identify the Commander's gender as that is a tiny, miniscule, absolutely insignificant peeve of mine in other fics, but an understandable thing to do. Though, XCOM seemed like an organization that'd call any superior 'sir' regardless of gender. May the night see you safe and the dawn greet you kindly dear readers**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: I find this to be rather cathartic after driving myself mad on RWBY material. XCOM has such…life to it to me.**

 **A/N: This chapter's been bandied back and forth quite a lot, trying to get it just right. The original is simply covered in notes and thoughts. I hope it was worth it for all of you. Big thanks go to the beta of this endeavor and a remarkable source of inspirations: Boardnkt.**

* * *

Eva rubbed her palms into her eyes as the memories washed over her, tears shining in the corner of her eyes before she quickly wiped them away. "Sorry." She shook her head clear. "Better than perfect recall, it's, well it's like I'm actively reliving it, but only in short bursts and that particular burst… that was one hell of an emotional ride... compound that with some other aspects that we'll get to... Goddess above, can you imagine, being stuck in an actively decaying body that is bound to the will of another? It's absolutely terrifying, beyond even the horrid things we saw from the Ethereal's invasion." For the briefest of moments, only just more than the blink of an eye, her irises and the ever-present wisps of energy about her flickered a pale, icy blue, before it returned to the normal vivid purple as she shook her head once more in order to . "It… has some lasting effects."

A deep breath, far larger than someone as small as she should be able to manage, filled her lungs before she slowly exhaled. "Sorry sir. I'm still getting used to being around actually trained psi ops again. Background thoughts are one thing but there's a different… feel to trained psions, if that makes any sense. It's far harder to block out the surface thoughts of someone who's had those powers unlocked. It's like everyone's talking at once but in your head, and believe me, I get enough of that as it is." The blonde sniper lets out a laugh and shook her head once more. "Getting ahead of myself again. All those questions rattling around your skulls will be answered eventually, just gotta be patient. Where was I? Right, moving across that desert..."

* * *

After we packed up the camp and made sure we'd scrounged anything and everything we thought we could use, our group made a sled out of plate metal and wires and attached it to Flore's armor. With that done, we started off to the north…albeit rather slowly with Flore's state and my missing leg.

It took us several days to cover 20 klicks.

The good news? After we had Flore vent her suit, the dry desert air helped slow down her decay. Bad news? It only prolonged her suffering.

We ran out of the meager food we'd brought with us within 2 days and were saved only by the fact that we found a lone camel that Hen mentioned. I cooked it up with the heat of the Heavy P's core. Unsafe yes, but safer than eating random camel raw, right? Hen initially refused to eat any since she wasn't feeling too good and didn't want to waste it if she was just going to throw it back up, but I refused to hear any of it and encouraged her to eat anyway.

Using the HP's core, we made camel jerky on the days while we rested. It was bland, chewy, but filling enough.

At night we moved. We following the north star and always hoping to cross a dune and see a town or a village, or hell even a caravan, but no, of course our first contact just had to be aliens…

* * *

I stopped our little trio and waved them forward. "Wait," I closed my eyes as I spoke up, extending my consciousness all around me. "Helmets on, hostiles ahead. Flore, you're suppression on any big ones. Hen, small fry, behind whatever cover you can muster. Any Brainer's are mine, I'm itching to fry some skulls." I went from Eva to Colonel Bodewig in a heartbeat as I sensed the aliens, most of their minds flickering in their meager brainpower, but 3 lights stood out, with one in particular that shone brighter than the others . "4 Heavy Floaters, 2 Elite Muts, 2 SecComms, and an Ethereal. Lot of high power, definitely someone dangerous. They're moving to the west, about 200 meters ahead. Haven't felt us yet somehow."

Hen tapped me on the shoulder, drawing my attention away from the visual mindscape. "Sir, there's a high dune we can use for an ambush and height advantage, it's approximately 150 meters ahead of us, should have good line of sight on them I hope."

"Solid plan. Break on my mark and when the shots start flying, I trust your judgments. Sync?"

"Sync."

"Syyync."

"Good, move out..."

In the dead of night we moved as swiftly a unit with missing limbs and a decomposing body were physically able. The top of the dune gave us a definite height advantage that sorely needed and allowed me the ability to go prone so that I could sight in on the small band of soon to be dead prey.

While Hen took up her own position, sighting the enemy with the more limited scope of the Plasma Rifle, she spoke over our private commlink. "3 on 9. Normally I'd feel sorry for them, but in our current shape? You sure you want to make this strike sir?"

The focused view through the scope brought on a thought not my own to the forefront and, in that inky black night, a smile crossed my lips for the first time in what seemed like an eternity. "I'm going to even the odds a bit… overwatch because they're about to be very, very upset."

"Aye sir,"

I took a deep breath, steadied the beaten rifle and felt a comforting surge of power flow through my head. "Embrace the void..." the mnemonic slipped off my tongue and triggered the precise neurons needed to let loose the reality-rending powers of a Rift square in the middle of the meandering aliens.

The damage was swift: the weak-willed Mutons and Floaters dropped like flies…which surprised even me, because my Rift seemed a helluva lot larger than the ones I had thrown on the Temple ship. Even the Brainers seemed to struggle with it, and the SecComms looked like they could barely able to move, much less fire back.

"Open fire on the Comms, I've got the Ethereal." I called through the shortrange. I put an eye to the sight once again and scanned the swirling purple battlefield. Fire stream down onto the two Commanders as the superheated plasma flashed the sand around them into brittle glass and cooked them where they stood…and left two lumps of charcoal where there had been three?!

"Lost contact. Anyone have eyes on?"

"Neeegative."

"Nega- Jesus fuck! He's right on top of me! Fuckin-" Hen's words were cut off and I felt the adrenaline crash through my system again, which pushed the pain of the forming migraine to the back of my mind and forced the jagged distortions of my vision to hold in some semblance of normality even as others blurred and spiked, swirling ripples of color flowing through the sand. "He's going for the Control!" I would've given just about anything at that point to have night vision or at least _something_ to clear the plasma flashes that jittered in my vision.

Time itself seemed to slow as I felt (rather than saw) the mindscape light up from the discharge of the built-up Psi. It stood out like a beacon to pull my scope towards it. Unfortunately, I wasn't fast enough to take the shot as the wispy threads of power shot into Hen's head and snapped it back while a hand left her rifle to clutch at it as the lanky alien took control of my Support.

… or so it had seemed, before Hen's head snapped back forward and, definitely disoriented, she swung her rifle like a club at the bastard. It passed through the Big Brainer's psi field like it didn't exist and connected with its neck like a fist on leather. I could hear the sound of its spine snapping like a piece of dry kindling even from several meters away, dropping it like a stone into the coarse sand.

"What now motherfucker!? Can't even get in my head!" Hen yelled as she stood over the collapsed alien, arms spread wide and rifle still clutched in one hand.

"Hen, report, what the hell happened?"

"Asshole's still alive, get on over here before I kill the sumbitch." Hen's harsh language always did sprout up the most during tense missions but as long she kept fighting at her best, I wouldn't complain.

I commed into Flore's channel. "Move on Hen's position, but keep aim and suppress her if she tries anything, sync?"

"Syyync."

"Move."

It took quite a struggle to right myself, with more than a few curses, especially in the shifting sands, but after a supreme effort that left me more tired than I should have been, I was back on my remaining leg with the rifle as a crook again. Several meters suddenly seemed a lot longer than it did before, but if XCOM had instilled anything, it was perseverance.

Hen stood over the fallen Ethereal, her rifle pointed squarely at its head while it squirmed. Bright blue fluid dripped from its face mask and its head wreathed in a sparking halo of the signature psionic purple. "Shit, fucker's bleed blue when you break their backs? That's probably something Vahlen'll want to know…"

Flore trundled up behind Hen as she spoke, aiming her Heavy P at Hen, which gave me that little bit of security I needed. "Hen, what the hell happened? You weren't rated high enough to be able to resist Mind Control but, now that I'm close enough, you're definitely not. Not for lack of it trying though. Stand down Flore…"

"It was like...I felt it try, but it was... I dunno far off, fuzzy, like hearing someone try to break through a vault door with a jackhammer, but then the vault door electrified or something and it got... knocked back while stunned. It's hard to describe."

A silken thread of the Ethereal's halo snaked off of it before it whipped between my eyes and allowed a whisper thin voice to echo faintly through me. _"So, the New One has not only learned, but improved the Resurrection? You continue to exceed our expectations, and yet you still need guidance. Without control you are like children with a gun, flailing in the dark. Keep me alive so that you may be taught proper mastery of your talents. With these wounds, I am little able to fight, but you may still learn and I may still teach. I may live, and you may still fully Ascend..."_

"Oy, must your type always speak so flowery?" I turned to Henrietta. "Hen, it's trying to seek asylum, offering knowledge in exchange. It seems pretty harmless right now since you broke its spine. What do you think?"

"I don't know..." I could hear the smile behind her helmet as she pulled her sidearm, inspecting it casually. "I've always been curious about what they taste like…"

The Etheral's veneer started to fall as the genuine fear for its life crept through its mind as it furiously painted its thoughts like a laser sight on an exposed target. _"You cannot do that! I am a prisoner! Your kind has rules for prisoners of war."_

A smile crept over my own face. "Hey Hen?" I looked up at the sky in mock thought for a moment. "Do you remember the Ethereals' signing the Geneva Convention?"

"Can't say I do sir."

"Well then," my gaze fell back to the broken creature before me. "Guess that means those rules don't apply here." I wiggled a finger at it an continued. "But, there's no reason to just peg it between the eyes. Like this, I could practice on it while we rested. See what its like to be on the giving end of tearing info from its skull." I leaned in close to the wounded Ethereal as I let malice drip from my voice. "It really hurts. With how 'unguided' I am, it will no doubt be lengthy and absolutely excruciating..." All of its thoughts were painted with deep fear, but it seems it needed just one final push. I released the latches on my helmet and pulled it off to reveal the vibrant aura that pulsed in my eyes. "And once we're done..." my grin turned downright feral as I leaned in even closer. "I can see about bringing you back like Flore, let you follow behind us, trapped powerless in your own... rotting... _corpse_..."

That broke it, and its haughty facade fell like shattered glass. _"Mercy!"_ It shuddered on the ground as it radiated panicked terror. _"I am near powerless in this state and completely at your mercy! Allow me to teach you! I do not wish to die, but if I must, please, allow me to expire and decay as I will rather than inflict your tortures!"_

Mission accomplished. "I accept. You will ride along with us on the sled, you will teach me during our rest time and will remain silent unless spoken too. If we are feeling generous, you will be fed and given water, otherwise we're just waiting for you to die. If, and this is a big one, we make contact and get picked up, you'll be handed off to the bosses and then they get to decide what to do with you." I nodded at my sidearm, "Break the rules, though and we go back to the original plan. Turns out these things can be quite good cutting torches."

" _Very well then,"_ its voice held its resignation. _"A chance at continued life is better than no chance."_

"Good. Flore, load him up if you please." A click to the private channel. "And be a _little_ gentle. I don't want this guy... girl... whatever, dying too soon, he'll be very useful if he's sincere." The towering armor that housed Flore nodded slightly before she set down the heavy weapon in her arms and picked up the wounded Ethereal with all the delicateness that a suit of Titan Armor could muster. She set it on top of the cloth covered hunk of metal and alloy that we'd been using as a sled and folded the lanky alien atop it. Doing so without making it scream in pain in my head was a bit of a challenge though but we got it taken care of eventually.

Gear re-stowed and Ethereal in tow, Hen had one final question before we started walking again. "Think Muton tastes any good?" They really didn't…

 **A/N: Think I might make this a prequel to something, got a few ideas of where I could really use all that I'm establishing. We'll see how it goes I suppose, especially with the influx of ideas I got from XCOM2. May the night see you safe and the dawn greet you kindly dear readers.**


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